Cross-Currents

Most activities in our lives involve electricity. Yet, how often do we recall that even the simple act of turning on a light is supported by a long history of debates over group vs. individual rights, environmental impact, political agendas and technological innovations?

Using the image of cross-currents as the organizing metaphor, this book details the many and often turbulent interactions and interconnections that occurred among the various people and events during the building of the northeastern Ontario hydroelectric system. Special focus is on Native and non-Native interests; southern business and political elites; northern natural resources and the interactions between technology and the environment.

Manore concentrates on the co-operation that existed among the various interest groups during periods of expansion and amalgamation. In today’s environment of limited energy resources, respect for the rights of First Nations and ecological concerns, this book is a reminder that co-operation rather than conquest is a more realistic approach to development.

Contents

List of Maps

Preface

... conditions or the effects of such development on First Nations. In many
of these studies, the metaphor used to conceptualize the process of development
connotes images of conquest and control.
Examining hydroelectric development, as it occurred in northeastern
Ontario, sheds a new and different light on the history of technology
and development in Canada. ...

Introduction

... to the history of development in Canada and elsewhere cannot be overestimated.
Industrial-based technological systems have been and continue
to be tangible (sometimes brutal) links between the natural
environment and society, indigenous and non-indigenous peoples and
the metropole and the hinterland. The history of hydroelectric development ...

CHAPTER ONE: The Rites of Development

...largely unknown and unknowable; mysterious entities located somewhere
‘‘up there’’ or on the reverse side of the Ontario road map. While
some people might have received descriptive snippets of information
about the rivers from friends, family and the media, these vicarious
experiences of the northern rivers have often left the impression that ...

CHAPTER TWO: Mining and Northern Canada Power, 1900-1930

... all obstacles to hydroelectric development on the Mattagami River. System
designers next had to develop technological strategies to overcome
environmental obstacles and then to meet increased demands for electricity
from the booming gold and silver mining industry in the Timmins
and Cobalt areas. By 1914, Hollinger Consolidated, the Dome, and ...

CHAPTER THREE: Dual Systems: Public and Private

... into Northern Ontario signified a new stage in the development of
hydroelectricity in Northern Ontario, for A.J. Nesbitt believing in
empire building, sought to monopolize the power supply across northern
Canada. Also, the Nesbitt Thomson Corporation already owned
several generating stations in Quebec and planned to link them to ...

CHAPTER FOUR: Resolution: A Single Power System, 1933-1945

... northeastern Ontario at the expense of Nesbitt Thomson and other power
producers. The HEPCO’s northern and southern systems remained
separate but, as will be shown, amalgamation did eventually occur after
World War II, as a result of power shortages in both the northeast and
southern Ontario systems. During this time period, two common ...

CHAPTER FIVE: Power, Finance and Regional Amalgamation

... of northeastern Ontario and the power companies was a troubled one.
Of all the northeastern industrial interests, the mining companies were
the most dependent on the power companies for their particular product.
Although they did have their own sources of energy supply and generation,
these supplies were not sufficient to satisfy their needs. ...

CHAPTER SIX: Co-operation

... held the view that nature is the seminal example of the ‘‘survival of the
fittest’’ paradigm in which hierarchy, dominance, competition and control
are the chief characteristics determining relationships between and
within species. Today, various scholars, from feminists to chaoticians to
ecologists, are challenging that view with increasing frequency. For ...

CONCLUSION: The Cross-Currents of Development

... specifically
and industrial development generally. While it is tempting, and
even preferable at times, to conceptualize development within models
both rigid and static like the hydroelectric dams themselves, and while it
is also tempting to view development in terms of power relationships
with the power resting largely with the developers, yet placing the ...

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